Subscribe to the Newsletter

What are Albertsons double coupons and how do they work?

Disclosure: the post below may contain affiliate links. When you make a purchase or take action using these links, the site makes commission. For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy.

Several of you have recently asked “What are these Albertsons double coupons I’m hearing about?”

And I realized I’ve never done a post exclusively on the subject. Until today.

Land of No Doubles

A little preface. In many parts of this fine country, grocery stores will “double” manufacturers coupons automatically at checkout. So if you have a $0.50 off coupon, it will work out to $1 off at checkout. The manufacturer will reimburse the store $0.50 (the stated value of the coupon), and the store will give the customer the additional $0.50 discount as part of their cost in doing business. Sometimes, stores will even have these “coupon tripling” events. I can only dream…

If you live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest like I do, you live in a place couponers refer to as the Land of No Doubles(or LOND, for short). This means grocery stores in our neck of the woods ordinarily do not double coupons.

There are a few exceptions that I’m aware of:

Kmart. They occasionally will include Washington in their double coupon events, but it has been a long, long time.Safeway. Safeways in Oregon and SW Washington may double coupons. Not the Safeways in my area, though.Summit/Tukwila Trading. These sister stores (in Puyallup and Tukwila) generally put out two double coupons in their weekly ad.Albertsons. About once every other week, Albertsons will put out three double coupons in the ad that runs in the Sunday paper.

Albertsons “Twice the Value” Coupons

Now that you have a little context, let me show you what these puppies look like:

As mentioned, the most common place to find these is the one-page Albertsons flyer in your Sunday paper. At Albertsons, the weekly sale cycle runs from Wednesday through Tuesday. This means that the double coupons are generally good three days only: from Sunday through Tuesday.

Less commonly, we might see double coupons in the weekly ad. If that’s the case, they’d be good for seven days. Even less commonly, I’ve seen the double coupons in the main section of the paper, run as an ad. Regardless, I do a pretty good job of letting you know if we’re going to be getting them and if so, where to find them.

Finally I should mention these coupons get lots of names. They are officially called “Twice the Value” coupons, but I may often refer to them as “double coupons” or “doublers.” Bottom line, if you hear me mentioning getting your coupons doubled at Albertsons, this is exactly what I’m referring to.

How Double Coupons Work at Albertsons

It’s quite simple, actually. First, you must have the double coupons in hand. If you don’t get the Sunday paper, rest assured you can often find these flyers at Customer Service of your local Albertsons. There are usually three, but a couple weeks ago, we got four.

Next, take ANY manufacturer coupon you wish (up to $1 in value) and you are going to “pair” it with a double coupon.

Let’s take a real-life example from last week’s Albertsons list, shall we?

The pie crusts were $0.99 each. I shared with you a manufacturer’s printable coupon that would save you $1 when you bought three. So if you would’ve selected this deal, you would’ve headed to checkout with the following: three pie crusts, the $1/3 printable coupon, and one of the “Twice the Value” coupons.

The $1/3 printable coupon is from the manufacturer. Albertsons will submit this to them (in this case, Keebler) for reimbursement. The $1 from the double coupon is a discount the store is giving you.

Fine Print Stuff

You know I’m not going to leave out the fine print, right?

Coupons that are $1.01 or more cannot be doubled.

Stores are now doubling coupons even if they read “do not double.” This is because the store is choosing to give you the discount. They will not be asking the manufacturer to reimburse them more than the stated value.

“Buy one, get one free” coupons cannot be doubled.

Those great “off your next order” Catalina coupons cannot be doubled.

The coupons state “limit three per family shopping trip.” It’s each store’s perogative to define what that means. Some stores interpret that to mean you can only use three double coupons per day. Other stores interpret it more as “three per transaction” and will permit you to do multiple transactions. I ALWAYS ask.

So there you have it – Albertsons double coupons! Are they worth getting to understand? Absolutely in my book! These are one of the ways I end up snagging cheap – and even free – groceries.

By the way, we are getting double coupons this weekend. Check out my deals list for the week and see what you can snag for free!

Hello my daisy from palmdale ca. One ? Um i have sum coupons from redplum.com. Can i use tham at the store too. Cuz this is my frist time doing it. Cuz im low of money and so hard. And allso im not working. I just a income come in.

I’ve been watching a marathon of Extreme Couponing and I have a question. I live in Vancouver, Wa and our nearby Albertson’s and Safeway stores only double three of your manufacturers coupons…..so where the heck do these extreme couponers shop because their register view often indicates multiple double coupon deductions…not just three! No wonder their savings add up so quickly and enormously! Just wondering. Thanks for your informative website!

First off, I should state that I do not endorse or condone the TLC show Extreme Couponing in any way. I have been asked to participate and promote the show before, but have declined both “opportunities.” I feel the show depicts unrealistic and sometimes fraudulent practices – some of which have negatively impacted things for the couponing community.

What you’ve noticed is exactly what has upset other viewers = that the stores have fudged normal coupon acceptance policies & procedures in order to accommodate the TV show. What you have is a “wow” shopping trip that no one else would be able to reproduce. As you’ve stated, Albertsons permits three double coupons and three transactions back to back (as of this posting). The Safeways near me don’t even double coupons (I’m a bit north of you), so I can’t speak to that.

If you stick around my site, I won’t teach you how to do “Extreme Couponing,” but I will teach you how to coupon in a way that’s realistic for the long term, respects your time, honors store coupon policies, and follows fine print. I offer a common sense approach to couponing and one that you can feel good about at the end of the day.

Trackbacks

[…] deals I could find for the week ahead at Albertsons. I have heard a rumor that we’re getting Twice the Value coupons this Sunday, and an additional rumor that we *might* be getting them for three weeks in a row! Can anyone […]

[…] their personal store may have chosen to institute. But when I heard from multiple readers that Twice the Value coupons would soon no longer be offered at Customer Service, I wondered if a corporate-wide change was in […]

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

My goal is to help you live well for less. I practice ethical, common sense couponing and report on a wide-range of deals including grocery, apparel, and travel. I also write about
frugal living topics including gardening, shopping tips, and cooking. I'm blogging out of the greater Seattle/Tacoma area. I'm a proud firefighter's wife and mother of two.
New? START HERE.